To-Do-List for my stream!

So, I’m writing this post right now at my parents’ place, mostly because I’ve been meaning to write posts again. It’s odd to not have to schedule a post for the next day because I already did that… and so, I kinda still am writing posts but with no pressure at all.

After all, I have posts scheduled up to Friday (currently, it’s Wednesday).

Anyway, today, I wanted to talk about things I wanna/have to do with my stream. These things have been on my mind for a while now and I’ve kinda been procrastinating a lot with them. I believe that by posting them like this, I can hold myself accountable by telling myself that I declared them publicly… So, I obviously have to take care of them, right?

First up: Audio and Audio Quality

I need to add a De-Esser!

I’m not sure if it’s just the English Language in general or possibly my vocabulary but I tend to use many words with the /s/ sound or the /z/ when I speak. Since I write the way I speak, you may notice it in my vocabulary as well… but again, that could also just be an English Language thing.

My point is that that’s not something I can necessarily change. The reason why it’s an issue, though, is that it is unpleasant to listen to when you’re talking a lot on a live stream or in a video.

Thus, I need to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a long while now: Adding a De-Esser.

Jett from InThirdPerson made a pretty darn great guide to doing just that which I intend to follow to improve my stream’s audio further. A De-Esser, after all, helps with making the /s/ and /z/ sounds easier to listen to, hence improving the audio quality.

Filter Shenanigans?

I wanna create some extra filters that I can turn on or off as I please, possibly with shortcuts.

I don’t want to make use of voice changers necessarily but rather do little things that are integrated into OBS that I then could hook up to a plugin and the channel points, making it so that channel point redemptions turn those special filters off or on.

The idea here is to maybe add dramatic effects to my microphone making it sounds as if I’m being listened to from a very old radio or making it sounds as if I’m the narrator from Altered Beast, literally telling people to rise from the grave.

Maybe that’s too much to ask but it’d be cool to have in theory for some shenanigans… Or if someone were to raid, it’d be cool to add an echo/hall sort of effect to my microphone to announce raiders in that boxing fight host fashion sort of… Does that make sense?

Sound Commands

Again, this is just a gimmick. I mentioned Channel Points earlier. People have amassed way too many of those until now, so I’d like to relieve them of them by adding options to mess with me.

Similarly, people have been collecting “souls” via my bot and currently, there is no way to spend those. Rather, it’s just unused potential – and by potential, I mean the option of adding more gimmicks to my channel that is currently lacking gimmicks.

So, some sound commands would be nice to have. Anime clips, Video Game clips, etc.

Altered Beast’s “Rise from the grave” is probably something I’d use as a follower sound effect or whatever. We’ll see.

Second up: Branding

Lore

I’m a lich… this is the crypt. Let’s have a good time.

That’s the lore, really, up until now and I was thinking of adding more to it, so I’ll probably think up something absurd and silly and just roll with it over time. When people ask me about my lore, I’ll answer yes and put my improv experience to use to act out a scene.

That’s at least an idea I had quite a while ago. I have some ideas of how to translate that into the stream’s visuals as well but I’m not exactly sure quite yet how to do that.

Visuals

Part of branding, I guess, is animations and images shown to people. It’s less about making it convincing that I’m a lich but more about making the rest of the stream look like I’m actually in a Crypt or rather: Immersing the viewer in an environment that doesn’t make them think that they’re “watching a stream” but rather… a show?

So, to create that feeling, I am working on some visuals that I want to implement into the stream as they’re ready. I had one idea that seemed sort of cool with a storybook of sorts opening up and the stream being what is in that book. Then there’d be some random or generic narration during breaks instead of our current BRB screen… and then there could be an end screen where the book is being closed.

I feel like that could be nice but I’m not that good with animation yet and creating something like that from scratch is going to take a while.

Another idea I had was this sort of Vtuber Avatar that I also wanted to create from scratch… Myself… Yup. The idea there was that rather than my character having a moving mouth and stuff, the hat would do the talking and the “face” just does the opposite.

It’s an idea that came to me at some point but I haven’t had the time to do any drawing or rigging since then. It will be something that I’ll need to work on once I get the time.

At last, discoverability?

Games

So, this one is something I’ve been wondering about a lot. What do I want to do with my stream?

I still wanna do chatting and art and whatnot during my streams from time to time, so that will stay.

Games, though… will also stay but I’m not 100% sure yet if I wanna keep it “just Indie” or if I want to shove in another AAA title here and there, too.

Currently, I’m thinking about possibly doing a mix, sort of. In the next semester, though, I probably won’t be able to stream as much, so I’m thinking of maybe having one Indie Stream a week and the other stream is spent with one main game of sorts. That’s probably a good plan, right?

I still wanna be flexible but if I end up just streaming twice per week at most… or maybe three times… it really depends on my upcoming schedule, honestly… I think that could work?

Channel Trailer/Raid Video

This is about the big “D” on Twitch: Discoverability!

I need to get to it and actually edit together some clips for a channel trailer.

The channel trailer will be among the things that people see for the first time when they check out my channel, so it’s relatively important actually in terms of conveying what vibe the stream has got going while also showing people what my stream and my community are about.

The important thing here, though, is the editing, the choice of clips, as well as the script/storyboard if that makes sense. I’ll have to challenge myself a widdle and try hard to make it as “uwu” and concise as possible.

“Hey, this is Magi, welcome to the Crypt, we play Indie Games and chat a lot.” – or something!

And then I’ll add a plethora of clips for about a minute of content from a variety of games…

And maybe I’ll play Bonaparte’s “Out of Control” in the background or one of Riot Games’ creator-safe tracks or something else entirely!

But I guess a bit of a challenge there will be the fact that the resolution, audio quality, volume, and layout are so vastly different among some of my clips, haha, so I’ll have to see what I’ll do about that…

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to talk about. Feedback is appreciated! Any thoughts on any of this?

Obviously, the schedule stuff will have to be something I’ll think about once I cross that bridge. I mean, I still have got a lot of time, right? And then in the new semester, the university stuff will take priority, of course, so I’ll fit streaming into my free time.

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!